A Terrifying Nightmare - Anonymous employee alwaysAI Employee Review

1.0
Mar 21, 2022
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great placeholder for your resume.

Cons

I should preface this by saying that this is 100% my opinion, and I don't expect anyone to accept my opinion as fact. TLDR: It's a crappy product with crappy management, and there are no opportunities for growth or promotions. The CEO and CTO really don't care about inflation or the well-being of employees. Why the product sucks: The supposedly SaaS product is straightforward. Users can deploy OPEN SOURCE CV models onto edge devices. However, this product requires MAJOR customization to be usable by any of their customers. Instead of hiring engineers to work on the product, the management is just keeping brilliant engineers on payroll to custom create applications for customers. So, there are no paying users, only paying clients who are receiving services. AlwaysAI is NOT A computer vision or MACHINE LEARNING PRODUCT! It is a scrapbook of other people's machine learning models. All models available to developers are open source, and all the apps that customers supposedly create with them are just built by the alwyasAI TEAM. Never the actual customer's developers. It's most definitely not a developer tool. Why management sucks: Management seems to be under the impression that if you just SHOVE the idea that this product will help companies make money, they will pay for it. We can get computer vision to be valuable in any industry. Fun fact, dear management: your product does NOT at all provide value to your target users. In fact, dear management … do you even know your target user? Right! You don't because you built the product before doing any user research. The founders made the critical product mistake of putting the cart before the horse. They built a useless product without figuring out if there is even a need for it in the market. Investors are idiots who are basically investing in it with the hope that it's the next new shiny AI product. A lot of companies that leverage computer vision in their product want to build from scratch, something custom! An algorithm that looks for something specific! The management says they are not a pro-serv company, but they are. Haha, doing the customization manually that the product can't do. CEO cares more about making the product look shiny and ensuring all the commas and I's are dotted. "Putting lipstick on a pig." They market so hard because they know that they have failed on the product on some level. CTO is just using this company to spend his time doing something fun while being condescending to anyone who can't code. All decisions go through the CEO. He needs to look at every email, every piece of code, and he can't even code. He'll assign you to work on something, and when you present it to him he says: "what is this for? Why did you do this?" Like bro, you have amnesia? Save yourself. If you have any self-respect, fully expect to lose it all if you're working closely with management. You should work here if you: 1. love being harassed by company founders and don't enjoy having any self-confidence. 2. Enjoy being publicly humiliated on slack 3. Want to stay stagnant and get no raises or promotions 4. Want to cry every single day.

Explore other reviews about alwaysAI

5.0
Mar 3, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great Hybrid setup, 2 days in the office

Cons

Chaotic development cycle, fixed later with Scrum and agile methodologies

5.0
Apr 5, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I had a great pleasure to be a Software Engineering Intern at AlwaysAI! I had a wonderful experience and learned a lot during my stay at the company. Getting the knowledge and becoming familiar with the industry practices is very important for interns who are only entering the field. The company is building an amazing product, but I would sat that its biggest is its people - they all are truly amazing, supportive, and are always eager to help if you are stuck. My manager, Lila, was very knowledgeable, helpful, and so supportive. I am incredibly thankful to the company and Lila for giving me this great opportunity! If you like the beach, the company's office is one block from the Pacific Ocean ;) Overall it was great, and I hope that I will have a similar experience when I'll get my full-time job after graduation.

Cons

I don't think there were any cons, I greatly enjoyed my time at the company. Somebody may consider a relocation "a con", as a flew across the country for this opportunity, but I thought it was a nice chance to explore California, as I have never been. :)

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